Just before you hired on at this plant a year ago, a new process line was added. It was designed and built by a machine rebuilder, using salvaged parts. The cost-savings to the company was considerable; without going this route, the new line would have been infeasible.
Since installation, the line has had a few upgrades, all of which were installed or performed by someone in maintenance. Over the past few months, the downtime rate of this line has been accelerating. Now it seems it has a problem every other day.
The maintenance procedures are being followed, and they were recently reviewed by the rebuilder who subsequently said they were fine.
How would you solve for this?
Was there good communication between the rebuilder and the maintenance people when designing and implementing the upgrades? Because an upgrade changes the equipment, you need to characterize and understand the changes. You also need to determine if there are discrepancies between the rebuilder's design of those changes and how those changes were actually implemented.
Go through this process deliberately and methodically. To ensure you and the rebuilder are “speaking the same language” compile a list of terms and write a definition for each. Make sure you agree on what these terms mean.
Clearing up any errors of implementation might solve this. But don't stop there. Because the machine has changed, it follows that the maintenance procedures probably need to change. Once it's agreed the machine is correctly upgraded, review with the rebuilder how each specific upgrade might alter the maintenance.
